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cannibal-nightmares · 8 days

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Trust Fall: Euclid - (Chapter 1)

Stein has a complete breakdown at Spirit's door.

Writing stuff like this helps me defrag. Such is my river. This takes place sometime after anime canon, more or less. It's loose in that regard. I didn't intend for this to be a multi-chapter project, but I think it flows better this way. I also haven't been able to touch art since I've been stuck on this piece, so breaking it up will help in that.

Soul Eater - Stein x Spirit (ship is up to interpretation, SFW) // hurt+comfort, actually schizophrenic author, schizophrenic Stein, psychosis, panic attacks, paranoia, non-verbal Stein Word count - 3,322 -- [AO3 link]

As familiar and cradling as the dark quiet was, the short memory of a cadence echoed in his ears until he realized it hadn’t been a part of his dream and had him gasp in surprise. Two raps and a delayed third had stirred Death Scythe from his sleep that night. A pause, sitting up now, the sound blurred in his recounting over and over in deciphering where it had come from, what it meant, who it could have belonged to. Why was he awake again? Spirit found his face with his palm and blinked into the room, the window shining faint blue with moonglow, sighing and recollecting consciousness.

Someone was knocking at the door.

The weapon made polite and tossed on a pair of pyjama pants before padding out through the apartment to the entrance. If he were any more present, he would have flipped on some of the light switches along the way for whoever it was he was about to greet, but the nicety was left in the sheets.

Too, he forgot to even look through the peephole before fumbling the door open.

“Yeah?”

Now he was awake.

“Franken?”

At the threshold was a drooping figure of a man in a tired labcoat, his countenance evading sight, though what could be caught of his pale irises contrasted back and forth from his deep circles to pin-dot pupils. His eyes darted amongst the floor in the area around Spirit’s ankles, and Death Scythe had an instinct to comment on his unsteady swaying before his guest nearly collapsed into his chest. He didn’t hesitate to catch him, taking the embrace in like a parent holding a distraught child.

“Hey, hey…!” He cooed with worry startlingly frying his voice. “What is it?”

The response returned was smaller than anything Albarn had ever heard before.

“I need your help, Spirit.”

“Help with…” Death Scythe started, but tightened his arms grip as the desperate man went nearly dead-weight over his feet. Exhausted laughter stifled only by breathiness and the fabric of a night shirt escaped the meister’s lungs. “Wh– Hey, talk to me–” Spirit stammered, then recentered as the shattered professor wedged between them one hand to cover his own mouth and the other to tightly shield his eyes. His shoulders jerked as the tormented giggling no longer had a way to escape.

His partner had managed shenanigans before to weasel his way into Death Scythes's apartment for reasons to reveal themselves, but there was no doubt in his mind now that this was not the case. Still, he was admittingly afraid to move as the doctor was convulsing choked wheezes in his hold.

Spirit gently dipped his body to take a look at the professor’s face, but, as they separated, Franken just curled more into himself at the waist, his shoulders hunched more and more in an assured attempt to get smaller. He was tense down to every muscle; Spirit kept a calm hand to the meister's upper arm and couldn't help but acknowledge the high-voltage anxiety course through his own throat.

“Let's get inside, Stein,” Albarn gently pressed him in, granting a few shuffled steps, but barely as the weapon shifted to close the door behind them did Franken's stressed chuckling become audible again, stumbling one more step inward and going weak in the knees. Spirit gasped and made haste to catch him, but couldn't keep them both from collapsing to the floor, jammed to where the perimeter met the wall. His laughter was starting to sound less like giggling and more like a struggle to breathe, prompting Albarn to circle around low to meet his front. The strain in his squeezed-shut eyes reflected something beyond pain and annoyance with it; Stein death-gripped one side of his brow with a flexed hand, the other he met forcefully with the heel of his palm once, twice–

“Hey, hey, none of that,” Spirit heard a tremble in his own tone. He put his hand on top of the assaulting wrist, but didn’t make a strict attempt to hold it back. With his left, he swept heavy hair behind his ear out from the professor's face.

“None of that, dear. You're safe, Stein. You're safe with me.”

With the singular beat of pause did reality come crashing: The DWMA’s greatest meister had scouted and crumpled at Albarn's doorstep. Spirit had only once seen Stein in such a near-drastic state before, but he otherwise often kept aloof and to himself out of what he perceived as self-preservation. What brought him here now, Spirit didn't know, and that unsettled him like a chilled breeze warning storms. It was his immediate reaction to ask questions, but he could only figure how that was going to play out. Franken muted his laugh with his chin to his sternum.

“Stein,” Spirit decided clearly, his jaw trembling. “Take a second, Stein. Can you hear me?” Albarn adjusted so that he could sit more comfortably close before him, rubbing his partner's shoulder soothingly, hoping the touch would ground him and grant him the ability to listen.

“I'm sure your ears are ringing,” he hesitated, fighting the want to trail off out of uncertainty. “Can you take a deep breath for me?”

The doctor grew impossibly smaller, his throat hitching a few times until his stifled laughter started to sound too uncomfortably like hyperventilation.

He finally let go of his face to take Spirit’s shoulder in search of panicked balance, each inhale becoming shorter than the last.

"Hey, come on now, Stein, listen to your breathing. Here, sit upright." Spirit hoped his tone sounded encouraging and not pressuring, but it was getting more and more difficult to compartmentalize his anxiety.

"Match me, Stein." He squeezed his shoulder with a confident hand. "Feel that?"

Franken kept his eyes strained closed, his head turned deep into himself and away. A short inhale, a shaky but gentle fist-tap to his forehead, a held breath, and at last forced a deep exhale. His right hand remained clutched onto Spirit’s shoulder. An inhale, a giggle, a flinch away, a held breath… He nodded to Spirit’s ask. Exhale, slowly…

A few more times, and the room fell quiet.

“What's happened, Stein?” Spirit released a sigh to himself, eyes long-since watering.

The meister didn’t seem to dare move from his awkward pose. The question was partly rhetorical, but attempting to answer seemed to gag him, his brow twitching in reflexes. A good moment, and his mouth opened to reply but was chased by his left hand to clasp it shut and a minute though frantic headshake. Eventually, that same hand shifted to further blind his vision as if he could see through his own eyelids.

All of this, he seemed afraid to let go of Spirit.

“That’s okay, Stein. Take your time.”

Death Scythe breathed deep, himself, blinking away tears of shock seeing his ever-strong meister at a loss for words, seemingly as though he had a gun to his head to keep from speaking. To say it was all uncharacteristic would have been a massive understatement.

“Let me help you up.” Albarn said softly. “You can sleep here, I know you need it.” He corrected himself too late with error lumping in his throat. “You look like you need it.”

He shifted only a little in preparation to help him stand, but as Stein accepted the support on his other side, mania neutralized his sheer strength against the exhaustion of fear and Spirit very suddenly realized his current position under his grip.

Death Scythe could have sworn he started to hear a faint yet piercing static-electric ringing.

The difference between them being he was able to ignore it.

His hands having shifted under and near Stein's elbows and forearms, Franken still with one to Spirit's shoulder, the weapon cleared his throat in transition.

“You ready?”

Stein didn't move but a slight pained spasm in his countenance. Spirit didn't, either, but he watched closely in the dim dark for any hint at a micro cue, as if a falling lock of hair could speak more to him. Further pause, and finally Franken gave a small nod followed by a quiet but soothing yet threatening and disturbed shushing to himself. Albarn wasn't sure if he should comment on it.

“I… Didn’t say anything, dear.” He brought his volume down, anyways.

“Not...” Stein gave a short sigh to the sound of his own voice, then very quickly hummed as if he were distracting from a mistake. “They…”

Spirit saw how instantaneous he was getting worked up again. “Hey, listen to me: You don’t have to explain yourself.”

“I’m not supposed to tell you.” He choked, a misplaced anger in his eyes as he finally met Death Scythe’s in a spontaneous contact, then let a glint retreat him back to cornered despair as the focus was more disarming than anticipated, very clearly catching the sight of tears in his partner’s eyes.

“It’s not…” Stein’s throat hitched again, panic in his pupils, suddenly stuck in an unfaltering stare. “I–”

“I’m in no rush.” Spirit was bold to interrupt, sighing in hoping his meister would reflect him, would feel his soul attempt to calm. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I am here for you.”

A beat.

“Spirit?”

“Yes, Stein?”

Franken almost couldn’t believe the noise over his tongue. “Spirit, is this actually happening?”

Albarn had started to wonder the same thing, but his position made him the last person to be in denial. The question was nearly too ambiguous to answer directly.

“You’re in my apartment. It’s late at night. You’re wearing your favourite lab coat... I’m here to help you through this, whatever you may need.”

Stein started to half-narrow his eyes and turned his head to face the room, his line of sight still locked to his partner momentarily before snapping it away and flicking amongst the dark. The weapon hoped to Death he hadn’t said the wrong thing, though it seemed the professor’s muscles were finally untensing, even if just a little.

“Come on. I’ll help you to the guest room.”

Franken accepted his partner’s grasp with a squeeze under his palm, unlooking, and Spirit didn’t have to think twice about the weight he was about to hoist up, his foot kicking his hip closer to balance them both as they made it to their feet. What took Albarn by surprise, then, was Stein’s hurried instinct to hide his face into the weapon’s collar; he could feel within his meister the irregularities of natural strength and circumstantial physical weakness fighting against each other, his limbs shaking with effort.

“Sorry, I–” Stein forced a chuff, starting to pull away, only to yelp as if something caught his attention, returning himself to Spirit’s chest with a grimace, groaning scared annoyances followed by hushed manic giggling. He brought his more readily-free hand through his hair so that his fingers were around the stem of his screw between his ear and the head of the bolt, pressing his skull like keeping something from escaping.

“Shh, it’s okay, Stein. I’m here.”

He enveloped the junior inward, brushing his hand across his back like comforting a boy afraid of the dark. In his meister’s convulsions, though, Spirit was beginning to admit to himself the struggle of keeping himself together: Five whole minutes into this intervened altercation and he found himself unsure of where to redirect his self-doubt. No, “uncertainty” wasn’t the word, but so starkly seeing the contrast… Before him was the otherwise most fortified man Spirit knew, hiding from the whims of his own mind in the arms of his weapon; the reversed symmetry in the inverted mirror was truthfully overwhelming.

But, as he had before, Spirit took the role of guidance with unhesitated grace. If Stein wasn’t giving up, neither was he.

“Do you want me to lead you?”

Franken deepened himself, flexing his fingers through his hair repeatedly. Despite the different shade of distress, he counted through a breathing exercise and Spirit waited.

In, two, three, four…

As he considered his patience, Albarn took accord.

Hold, two, three, four, five, six…

In the rows did something stumbling find another: A hushed and scrambled cacophony of channels flipping on a television set fell steep with both hands gripping back on a yoke, the descent mere inches from the utmost height to the floor, like tripping over an edge in a nightmare… The other, a boat on a black sea with the mainsail long-pulled taught against unprecedented but not unexpected winds... Intangible and unlikely otherwise, the two came together in the image of a dream and all became but a tolerable buzz, a soothing pendulum...

Out, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…

Strain built intentionally tight in Spirit’s chest, but, with the exhale, tension he wasn’t even aware of released from his jaw and neck, his head a bit dizzy with the new air and the familiar scent of his meister. He continued to pause for several more rounds, several more heartbeats, the grip in Stein’s fidgeting lessening in white.

Spirit took his right hand and found his own shoulder where his meister still had not let go. With the smallest smile, Albarn lowered himself in gesture.

“Keep your eyes closed if you need to. I will guide you.”

Stein nodded. Shakily but earnest, he nodded.

The weapon considered prying Franken’s hand off of him to more comfortably take him by the wrist, but instead let his own fingertips suggest that his hand was fine right where it was, turning away and having the placement shift to follow suit. Stein couldn’t help an anxious muttering in the readjustment that had Spirit raise an eye to his attention. He concluded it was all self-soothing. Stein looked so little in his frame.

A few shuffled paces, they made it across the living room to the hall and the spare bedroom door, but a couple clicks of involuntary ratcheting caused Franken to yank back on his escort with wild eyes snapped open in a sudden shock.

“Stein!” Spirit yelped.

“Shhsh! No, no, we can’t– You can’t–” He brought both hands to the back of his neck, elbows almost touching in the middle.

Spirit jammed his nerves into a lower gear. “Slow down, Stein.” He tried to move non-threateningly to alter his focus, but the panic was becoming intoxicating. “What is it?”

“They’re waiting for us, you’ll see, you’ll figure it out. You’ll know.” Stein’s flickering eyes were just as they were when he showed up to the apartment: Frantic, lost, certain of something displaced. He flinched, he shushed, he giggled false reassurances as an apology for his child-like fear.

“Inside?” Spirit had to retain a quiver. “Did your soul perception tell you that?”

Stein went eerily quiet, his mouth just barely open. His lips met again when he allowed a tiny nod, his pindot pupils unchanging in the confirmation.

Albarn forced an amused huff with a playful smirk. “What are the odds a death scythe wouldn't be able to defend himself?” From his forearm that neared the door, an arching blade flashed out from his ulna to his wrist.

Something wild crossed Stein's face, but, this time, Spirit couldn't place what it was; maybe it was the shift in energy in the now-unwavering eye contact, the desperate nod that followed, the microexpression of curling-upward lips. Franken reached out to return his balance to Spirit.

The weapon turned the knob and pushed in–a bit awkward with his scythe unsheathed–half-expecting the darkness inside to spill out and swallow them whole, but, of course, the room was exactly as it were, save the faint luminescence of the moon. They crept inside, Stein mentally clearing the space from one corner to the next, and the blade was put away with a slight metallic scraping. Spirit threw back the comforter of the bed and circled on his heel to suggest his partner to sit on the edge, his static-electric unease gradually ebbing further from its peaks. He made sure to remain patient in his movements, kneeling to help Franken untie his shoes.

“When’s the last time you slept, hon?”

Stein watched Albarn’s meticulous fingers, but Spirit couldn’t tell if he was observing them as an anchor or tearing them apart like a riddle.

“I keep having nightmares.” He murmured, his voice like that of a child confessing to trouble.

Death Scythe pretended that was a conclusive response with a hum, though genuinely surprised and relieved he had an answer at all. He held the junior’s calf while loosening the tongue of his left shoe, slipping it off and setting it aside.

“I’ll…” Stein spoke again. “I’m not sure this isn’t one of them.”

Spirit looked up from his task once he made a pair, expecting to find the professor’s gaze, but it was a thousand yards away like a bullet that had long gone straight through him.

“Franken…” he said just to make noise. Albarn took his hand that rested in his lap and met his height, closing his eyes and sighed resolutely. He touched his forehead to his meister’s and brought his left hand to the side of his neck only thereafter. Stein jerked at the touch, but seemed to then lean into Spirit’s confidence of trust.

“You’re here with me. Nightmare or not, I am here to get you through this; you've made it all this way.” He stepped back to meet his eye contact. “You don't have to fight this alone, I'm here with you. I am here for you.”

Spirit's rambling went on a bit too long to prevent a trembling in his voice, but he didn't think twice in pressing through to convey his sincerity. He knew talking to Stein in that moment was like talking through a TV screen, but hoped to Death something slipped over the cross-reception to sell him worth-while reassurances.

Franken found himself in a different kind of daze, watching not the stitches fray apart, but the sutures sew together. This time, the eye contact torn away seemed more of an acknowledgement than a retreat, though still unfocused on anything in their plane. Spirit slipped his hands away and stood, returning, then, kind fingertips to the inside hem of the doctor's lab coat, but his wrist was met with a startled grab.

“You want to keep your coat on?” Albarn plainly asked aloud.

Stein shakily agreed with a met haze. “It's keeping me here.”

A softness passed over Spirit. “Alright, dear.” He met his meister's bicep gently in gesture, and Franken awkwardly complied to tuck his legs up onto the mattress and let his body sink into the plushness of the sheets. The beat prior, they both realized, would be the last time their eyes would meet that night.

“I don't know what decision led you to come to me, but I am grateful for your faith.” Spirit brought the blanket over Stein's torso and up to his collar, then leaned in to kiss him smally on the temple. “I will be just in the other room if you need me, Stein. And you can come to me for anything.”

The scythe returned upright and stepped towards the hall, his watch worriedly lingering over the junior who huddled the comforter to his chin.

“Do you want the door open?”

He didn't answer.

Spirit dipped his half in a nod after a moment.

“Good night, Stein.”

Death Scythe left the door cracked and took a few paces to stop dead-center in the living room. His ears were ringing. How long had they been ringing? The blackness of the corners of the walls sighed with a heaviness released from the weapon’s chest, and he stumbled a single step for balance while a cry unexpectedly welled up and out of his throat. He met his hands clasped to his mouth to keep from making noise, but nothing could stop the convulsions in his shoulders.

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